RAMALLAH—Member of the Palestinian Parliament and Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, said on Saturday that Israel has turned its checkpoints, set up by the military in the occupied territories, into barriers of death and assassination at the gates of cities and towns in the Palestinian territories.

Barghouti then went on to convey his condolences to the families of the two young Palestinian men killed early Thursday evening, Anas Fouad al-Atrash (23) and Jamal al-Din Awdeh (20). Barghouti said that the occupation forces killed the two citizens in cold blood. Al-Atrash, of Hebron, was shot dead by Israeli occupation soldiers at the Container checkpoint near Bethlehem after allegedly wielding a knife at one of the soldiers.

"They stopped my two sons at the checkpoint and they were waiting to be checked. Then the soldiers came to the car and opened the door and my son tried to get out and they shot him," Maan News Agency reports Al-Atrash's father, Fuad, as having said in an interview with AFP.

Jamal al-Din Awdeh was shot killed the same night at the Zaatara checkpoint south of Nablus. The young man is reported to have shot fireworks at the soldiers before being shot dead.

Dr. Barghouti said that Israeli soldiers prey on citizens as they pass through the Israeli controlled roadways that cut apart the Palestinian territories, adding that most of the Palestinians in the West Bank killed since the Second Intifiada have died under similar conditions and circumstances.

Dr. Barghouti stressed the seriousness of these crimes, crimes that are a part of the occupation, search and clearing operations and assassinations that render the lives of Palestinians hostage to the will of Israeli soldiers who make lame excuses to carry out their crimes.

Dr. Barghouti said the number of martyrs shot dead by Israeli soldiers at military checkpoints or medical patients prevents from crossing (who died as a result of the delay) has risen to 413 since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000 until today. Among the dead are 32 unborn children, who died in their mothers’ wombs after they were prevented from reaching hospitals on the other side of the checkpoints.

Dr. Barghouti added that the murder of al-Atrash and Awdeh are reminiscent of the killings are similar to the executions carried out by Israeli soldiers at military checkpoints throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, including the killings of Akram Badi Badr at the Zayim checkpoint in East Jerusalem in 2012 and Ahmed Mahmoud Mousselmani at the Hamra checkpoint in January of 2011. Additionally, the killings of Salem Mohammed Samoudi, from the village of Yamoun in Jenin, at the Dotan checkpoint, Rashan Muhanna from the village of Atil and Hassan Zubaidi from Balata refugee camp at the Hambra checkpoint between Tubas and Jericho in 2001, and Shadi Matoor who was killed at the Halhool checkpoint in the north of Hebron.

As a result, MP Mustafa Barghouti has put out a call to organize a campaign to widen the boycott and sanctions movement against Israel, and calls on Palestine to immediately join the organizations and bodies of the United Nations, especially the International Criminal Court in order to prosecute Israeli criminals for their crimes against the Palestinian people and their land.